here is something for community people and neighborhood watch to sink their teeth into, including those of you that love to go for an EARLY Morning WALK everyday, Volunteers are needed to help walk and supervise areas to create a safe environment for kids to walk to school.

Aqueduct Street in Welland ontario canada (where the junior, public and primary schools are located in welland) do not have SIDEWALKS on a portion of the street, making it an unsafe area for kids to walk to school.

They are looking for ideas on how to fix this issue. My question was who have they contacted in the city of welland.

they organized a “walk to school” type of event (sorry I didn’t get the NAME of it) for local politicians to WALK the route the kids would take, pointing out the need for sidewalks.

It used to be a priority but then something else came up and it got put on the BACK BURNER!!!!!

So we need too, as a community, ask for this to be rectified, asap! 🙂

Laurie also meets with “Greener communities nationwide planning” according to my notes? 🙂

Laurie’s school travel planning is to make it “sAFER” to walk to school

some of the concerns of parents is abduction

so we made some suggestions (mine – neighbourhood watch to help, and getting retires out there walking and looking at the students, to help keep the roads, sidewalks safe on the way to the schools.)

a program where they are the designated security watcher and if they cannot do it, a two hour heads up phone call to a certain person, who then designates the WATCh time to others. I suggested a TEAM of four persons for each area, so that there’s an overlap in case one or two cannot make it.

Laurie also talked about niagara sustainability NSTS initiative – car pooling where they map neighbourhoods for employees, the same maps could be used to set up area watches by the schools for people to volunteer their walking or sight time. 🙂

I also suggested Laurie contact any walking exercise clubs.

Like the one’s we have at the Pen Centre, Fairview Mall and in Fort Erie the Leisureplex, where some of the walkers can do some outdoor trips together as a team and offer them coffee, hot chocolate and refreshments AFTER the time alloted as a REWARD and thank you for their volunteering time.